Plain Talk: How corporate spin sets public agenda

If you want to figure out how an extremist like Scott Walker can
get elected governor of a state that has historically been known
for its enlightened politics, you need to read Wendell Potter’s
book “Deadly Spin.”

Potter is the longtime senior public relations executive for two
of the largest health insurance firms in America, who became so
disgusted at their tactics that he quit and set out to tell the
world what really goes on.

The book describes in astonishing detail how corporate America
cleverly sets the public agenda by manipulating the news media,
buying politicians and effectively misleading consumers.

When you read this book you come to understand how it was that
the big tobacco companies were able for years to discredit
mountains of medical research that cigarettes cause cancer and how
today’s big conglomerates like those operated by the notorious Koch
brothers are able to convince millions of Americans that the
world’s scientific community is wrong about global warming.

And how clever advertising can convince tens of thousands of
citizens to vote against their own interests.

Specifically, “Deadly Spin” describes how the health insurance
industry has been able to demonize any plan to improve health
coverage for Americans, including so-called ObamaCare, which for
the first time expands health coverage to millions of citizens who
have had to go without in our terribly broken health system.

Potter, now a fellow at the Madison-based Center for Media and
Democracy, insists that much of the vehement anti-health care
reform rhetoric trumpeted by Republican politicians and “angry” tea
partiers is being orchestrated and underwritten by for-profit
insurance corporations. While those corporations assure consumers
they really care about consumers’ health, the truth, according to
Potter, is that millions die as a result of inadequate health care,
and it’s all aimed at increasing profits.

A case involving a 17-year-old girl named Nataline Sarkisyan was
the final straw that caused Potter, who at the time was chief of
public relations for the giant insurer CIGNA, to quit. Nataline was
critically ill and only a liver transplant could save her. Doctors
had found one but couldn’t operate because CIGNA denied the request
to cover the costs, claiming a transplant was “experimental,” even
though the doctors insisted it was not.

Relatives and friends appealed to the media for help and the
outcry was so great that CIGNA reversed its decision. But it was
too late. Nataline died a few hours after the insurance giant
relented.

After her death, CIGNA was swamped with calls from an outraged
public. Opinion columnists lambasted the company and there was
concern at CIGNA that Congress would get involved, so CIGNA hired a
huge law firm and a public relations firm that had worked
previously to discredit Michael Moore after his documentary
“SiCKO.” Potter describes how the outside firms aggressively
planted articles with friendly politicians and pro-industry news
media, all aimed at creating doubts that Nataline would have lived
in the first place.

The lawyers and PR firms planted a “spy” at Nataline’s funeral
and, when the family filed suit against CIGNA, assigned a team of
lawyers to keep track of the family and its lawyer.

“It became clearer to me than ever that I was part of an
industry that would do whatever it took to perpetuate its
extraordinarily profitable existence,” Potter writes. “I had sold
my soul.”

I met Wendell Potter at Fighting Bob Fest a couple of years
back. He talked to the crowd about the extraordinary measures that
the for-profit health insurers will go to in order to convince the
public that any government plan would do everything from ration
health care to restrict their choice of doctors. And, of course,
for the most part, they have succeeded so far.

But the book, which hadn’t been written then, goes much further
in describing how some unscrupulous public relations practitioners
are able to turn the public’s perception about an issue completely
upside down. And the book does it in an even-handed, no-nonsense
way.

Potter admits that “we will never be free of spin, but we can be
wise to it, and we can push back against it.”

His book should be read by anyone trying to make sense of all
that’s happening around us these days.